


C'est La Mort

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic [34]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Established Relationship, Last Kiss, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Prompt Fill, Terminal Illnesses, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6107092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LJ Comment Fic for Kissing prompt: <i>author's choice, author's choice, true love's last kiss</i></p><p>In which an illness ends Blair's life, and Jim can't let him go alone. Tissue warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	C'est La Mort

_C'est la vie_  
_C'est la mort_  
_You and me_  
_Forevermore_

_Let's walk down the road that has no end_  
_Steal away where only angels tread_  
_Heaven or hell or somewhere in between_  
_Cross your heart to take me when you leave_  
_Don't go_  
_Please don't go_  
_Don't go without me_  
(C’est La Mort, The Civil Wars)

* * *

Despite the trouble that Blair always seemed to draw like a magnet, Jim had been certain he’d die well before his Guide. Killed on the job, most likely, or in an accident when the senses worked against him. Neither scenario had come to pass, and once he’d retired he decided it would be old age that took him out. He had almost ten years on his partner, and somehow he thought that would make a difference. He hadn’t counted on cancer.

Jim and Blair had been together for thirty years, two as work partners and the rest as life partners. It amazed Jim, sometimes, when he looked back on it. He remembered thinking that Blair was a flake back in the beginning, and his constant parade of girlfriends certainly hadn’t given him any credibility as someone who had staying power. Surprising, then, to learn how stable and solid Blair was when it counted.

Now it was all ending and Jim wished for more time. Thirty years wasn’t enough, no amount of time would be. He was on the darkside of sixty-five and it was all downhill from there, but he’d planned on them making that trip together.

“Jim?” Blair’s voice was a mere whisper, but the senses hadn’t dimmed at all with age. Jim was at his side in an instant, never too far away these days.

“What do you need, Chief?” he asked, holding his partner’s hand carefully in his own. Blair blinked up at him, his eyes unfocused because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. And because he was slipping away.

“I don’t…I can’t remember.” Blair sighed, defeated, but Jim kissed his forehead.

“It’s okay. Rest now.” He sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand through the short, graying curls on his Guide’s head. He’d been so glad when they started growing back, because Blair just didn’t look like himself without them. They’d never get as long as they once were, though, and that thought made Jim’s chest ache.

“Everything okay?” Erica whispered from the doorway. She was the Hospice nurse, the one who worked the night shift. Blair had insisted because he didn’t want Jim handling everything himself.

“We’re fine,” Jim replied.

Erica just nodded and went back to the living room. She’d told him it wouldn’t be long now, days maybe. Maybe less. He’d already made all the arrangements, filled out all the paperwork. The little house he and Blair had bought when he retired would go to Steven’s children. Most everything else would be donated to various local charities. Funeral arrangements had been made and paid for. He left nothing undone.

Jim focused all of his senses on Blair, so used to the scent of sickness that it barely registered anymore. There was a new smell now, though, acrid and cloying. Death. It surrounded Blair, choking him so that his breathing was labored and irregular. Jim knew they didn’t have days. Might not have hours, at this point.

He lay down on the bed and curled up next to his partner, remembering countless nights doing the same thing. He remembered being held, being loved, Blair reaching for him even in sleep. Jim knew, as he had since the beginning, that there was no life for him in a world without Blair.

“Jim?”

“Right here, babe.” Jim rubbed small circles on Blair’s chest.

“I don’t feel good.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

A few tears fell, though Jim tried hard to swallow them. “It’s not your fault. I love you, Blair.”

Blair closed his eyes, some of the tension leaving him. “Love you too. Forever.”

Jim pressed a kiss to his partner’s lips, careful, reverent. He waited, but there were no further words, just breathing that was too rapid, too breathy.

“Don’t go without me,” Jim whispered. He rested his head on Blair’s chest, focused his hearing on his Guide’s heartbeat, and let everything else melt away. His focus narrowed and he used the skills Blair had taught him to synchronize his own heartbeat to his partner’s. He closed his eyes, shutting out everything else.

Jim didn’t know how long they lay together that way until the space between beats grew longer and longer. There was no pain, no panic, just a blanket of calm that settled over him. The final thought he had, between one heartbeat and the very last one, was _I love you forever_.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** I always said I’d never write a deathfic, but when I saw this prompt I had an image of Jim with his head on Blair’s chest in my mind and it wouldn’t go away. It also nicely paired itself up with the saddest, sweetest death song I know.


End file.
